Hands down, without a doubt, I played the most of Super Mario 3D World. The time spent with my family, and more specifically, my daughter and I, playing the game reminded me so much of why and how I got into games in the first place back in the day on my NES. I felt as if I had been passing the torch to her, but only five years old, and taking on her first full game by herself on a separate save file. On the main file, we’ve cleared the entire game together except for the Champion’s Road. I’m stuck and can’t beat it, but I won’t give up and keep trying it to show her that you don’t give up and that with practice, you can get past any challenge.

2013 has been a long one (a year to be exact). During that time I have played many games for many hours, and specific ones do come to mind as taking a lot of time. SSX and Okami HD took quite a bit of time to get a Platinum on. Assassin’s Creed III glitches required a full game restart after I was already at 75% completion, and problems in Assassin’s Creed IV have artificially increased my playtime to over 60 hours looking for a damned community chest. But the most time consuming Platinum this year was going for top level on Tomb Raider multiplayer, which was a nightmare, and why it makes me sick to look at any info on Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition.

My first thought was to say GTA V, as I spent some serious time playing through the campaign, collecting spaceship parts, letter fragments and just running around online. But, I also have put a ton of time into Battlefield 4 and LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, so it might be a close call between all of them.

Shortly after thinking of my answer to this question, I realized that I did a lot of game jumping in 2013, which means I didn’t spend too much time on one title and moved past it rather quickly. So, while these games were disappointing and didn’t resonate with me as much as previous entries in the series, I’ve actually played Pokemon X/Y more than anything else this year, having beaten both games once each.

When I’m asked this question again in a year, hopefully I’ll be able to respond with inFamous: Second Son, but it might also be Super Smash Bros.

Joseph Peterson – Safety

This honestly depends on the system. I played a ton of GTA V on the PlayStation 3, especially when the game first released. But as soon as the PlayStation 4 was released, I’ve been playing Madden NFL 25 pretty much non-stop when I find some free time. Both are great games in their own right in my opinion, definitely worth checking out if you are fans of either franchises.

For any game to draw me in and make me spend a large amount of time in it, it requires a co-op aspect that will give me the opportunity to spend time with friends while gaming. While GTA V did take up a nice chunk of my gaming time, Dead Island: Riptide takes the cake. The PR rep was nice enough to send out two review copies before release, so I was able to jump in with a friend from the get go. We had loads of fun building weapons, killing zombies, and covering every square inch of the islands. We still play Riptide from time to time, even with both of us jumping into next-gen gaming.

Definitely Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, edging out my time on Ni no Kuni quite significantly. I’ve played through two betas, early access, and as much as possible. I’m really enjoying the game because it’s a solid mixture of a lot of fun things to do with a group of people. The little time I’ve spent with the new features in the 2.1 patch have so far shown the producers know which direction to go, though admittedly there is still a ton of stuff to do and see – and thus more to look forward to.